unicellular

adjective

uni·cel·lu·lar ˌyü-ni-ˈsel-yə-lər

: having or consisting of a single cell

unicellular microorganisms

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web Many species are unicellular and lack advanced structures such as stems, leaves, and petals. —

Amy Nordrum, IEEE Spectrum, 30 May 2018 In its half-century of existence the Bion program has sent everything from seedlings, unicellular organisms, and plants to Rhesus monkeys, insects, rats, and fish into space. —

Perrin Ireland, Discover Magazine, 28 Apr. 2013 Yeasts are unicellular, while molds and macrofungi take the form of mycelia, networks of threadlike membranes, each a single cell thick, that can infest a rotting orange, infiltrate acres of woodland or fuse together to make a mushroom. —

Kenneth Miller, Discover Magazine, 30 May 2013 Schwartzman and van Gestel both believe that a capacity for multicellularity evolved early in life’s history and is shared with bacteria’s ancient cousins, the archaea, which also seem unicellular. —

Carrie Arnold, Quanta Magazine, 2 Nov. 2022 Last year, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology reported that unicellular yeasts in their laboratory evolved a huge multicellular form in just two years. —

Carrie Arnold, Quanta Magazine, 2 Nov. 2022 In a 1998 article in the Annual Review of Microbiology, Shapiro argued that bacteria aren’t unicellular loners. —

Carrie Arnold, Quanta Magazine, 2 Nov. 2022 The creatures are widely considered to be the closest living unicellular relatives of animals: a sister twig on the tree of life that grew up alongside ours. —

Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic, 28 Sep. 2022 Indeed, many other organisms, including unicellular eukaryotes, contain the same synaptic genes, says Sally Leys, a marine biologist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. —

Max Kozlov, Scientific American, 9 Nov. 2021 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'unicellular.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.